Analyzing air yards for fantasy football is a valuable exercise for prognosticating what might be coming for certain receivers. If a wide receiver saw a tremendous number of air yards but fell entirely short on receiving yards and receptions, we could make an assumption that will regress in his favour in future games. Conversely, if a player saw a huge spike in receiving yards but did not see the corresponding air yards, that could mean a tremendous number of yards after the catch, which could always vary from week to week.
Looking at a player’s intended usage and not just the surface-level outcomes is a way to more accurately value players in fantasy football and help with fantasy start-sit decisions. I hope you join me every Wednesday during the regular season for our breakdown of the week that was in Fantasy Football air yards.
Week 9 Air Yards Analysis & Fantasy Football Takeaways
Below is a chart representing air yards and receiving data courtesy of the 4for4 Air Yards App. Air yards are a tool freely accessible everywhere, and you can find the site or format that works best for you.
This list represents the top 50 players from most to fewest air yards. From Jaxon Smith-Njigba‘s 227 air yards down to Malik Nabers‘ 59. Also included in this list are each player’s targets, receptions, average depth of target (aDOT), target share and share of the team’s air yards.
Showcasing all of these pieces of data together with a heat map provides opportunities for a quick eye test from this chart and gives us many takeaways from Week 8. In this weekly piece, we will dig into the four biggest things that jump out to me from this dataset, which might help with fantasy start sit decisions, fantasy football trade values and more.
Top Takeaways From Week 9 Air Yards Data
On Sunday, Jaxson Smith-Njigba had one of the top individual air yards game of the year when he saw 227 (65% of his team's total) on 13 targets. He turned that into 180 yards and two touchdowns in what might be the game that begins to catapult his status to superstar. Granted, the game was played without D.K. Metcalf, but JSN proved that he is up to the task when he needs to graduate from WR3 and go all the way to WR1. He was top overall in air yards, and in the top three in target share and air, yards share.
With this game, JSN now moves to 23% air yards share and almost 21% target share on the season. His 13 targets were a season-high, and the cumulative domination here could portend big things ahead in this pass-friendly offense. Seattle is second in pass attempts per game and third in pass play percentage called this year. Unfortunately, Seattle is only 18th in team passer rating this year, but if that can regress somewhat back to the mean, we could see more smash games like this for JSN, even when Metcalf is healthy.
Second on the week in target share (42.3%) and 50th in total air yards (59) is not a combination you see often in today's NFL. Call it the Daniel Jones effect, or whatever you want it to be, but Malik Nabers seeing only a 5.4-yard average depth of target (aDOT) has to be some kind of anomaly for this young rookie receiver. In fact, it is. Nabers' aDOT on the season is over 10.6 yards, but for one week, the Giants thought they should cut that in half.
Nabers is near the top of the wide receiver leaderboards in many categories, including target share (28.7%), air yards share (40.9%), and overall air yards (895). He has done this by the Giants not being afraid to target him downfield 10-15 yards from the line of scrimmage. He is a talented enough playmaker that he can go get balls, even if Jones' accuracy is somewhat off. Hopefully, this is just an outlier, and we don't see many days for Nabers where he has excellent usage but inefficient production.
Proceed Carefully With Quentin Johnston
Los Angeles Chargers wide receiver Quentin Johnson finally had a massive game, reaching more than 100 receiving yards for the first time in his career. His 118 yards and a score helped break the game open against Cleveland. However, be careful to extrapolate too much into this spike week. His 19.2% target share was just 34th among receivers this week, and his 28% air yards share was good but not great. Johnston benefited from busted coverage and generated a ton of yards after the catch in this one, which is not generally reliable.
In fact, his long touchdown came from busted coverage against Cleveland and that has somehow been Johnston's calling card this year. According to FantasyPoints Data, no player has more fantasy points this year from busted coverage than Johnston. Is that a sustainable skill? Certainly not. Johnston does have separation ability, but these large receiving numbers with relatively modest air yards may not be able to continue for too much longer.
Caleb Williams Connects With One Receiver (But Has Three Good Ones)
Rome Odunze and Caleb Williams finally got back on track this past week after several subpar weeks in a row. Odunze saw seven targets, had 108 air yards and 104 receiving yards, and secured more than 30% of his team's air yards. It was a welcome sight after some rocky days. However, Caleb Williams could simply not get on track with either D.J. Moore or Keenan Allen. The two had 19 targets for 244 air yards, But they only finished with a combined 69 yards. Those two could not get on the same page with Williams, as his accuracy continues to be somewhat of a roller-coaster ride.
Williams' accuracy rating is ranked 36th among quarterbacks this year. His true completion percentage is just 28th. And it doesn't get any better in the red zone, where his accuracy is ranked 32nd at the position. On and on down the line, we see numbers that prove Williams has a long way to go to be an accurate quarterback. It seems as if he is unable to support three viable wide receivers this time, and Williams is just rotating through them, so they each have a big week or two per month. Just be cautious when investing in Bears' receivers for the last half of the season.
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